When was mahjong invented

In America, it became difficult to follow the game because several rules and playing methods were invented. This situation came to an end when J. P Babock published a book titled "Rules for Mah-Jong".

He was a bulk exporter of Mahjong playing equipments and he wanted to simplify the rules so that more people will start playing the game. His commercial interest saw tremendous success in popularizing Mahjong.

American version of the game constantly got modified and is very different from the original game. The first thing a player will notice with American Mahjong is the remarkable number of hands which can be legally formed.

A "hand" is the combination of card to be formed in order to win the game. This was not the case only with America. Other countries like Britain and Japan where Mahjong became so popular made alterations in the game to match perfectly with their culture. The most used form of the game is Hong Kong or Cantonese Mahjong.

With the invention of video games, video arcades in Japan introduced Mahjong to their arcades and these arcades allowed users to play with players from different part of the world. This brought added popularity and again several updated versions of Mahjong got released. Interestingly, the original Chinese version of the game is not played in China but has some faithful followers in the west.

All this is very unlikely because the stark truth is that no evidence of the game exists before around In fact, the history of the game is straightforward and can be viewed in two parts - "until the early s" when the game was almost exclusively played by the Chinese and "after the early s" when the game was discovered and immediately popularised by other nations.

A set of Mah Jong tiles consists of 36 tiles in the Bamboo suit, 36 in the Circle suit, 36 in the Character suit, 16 Wind tiles, 12 Dragon tiles and 8 bonus tiles 4 Flowers and 4 Seasons.

The best tiles are made from bamboo and ivory or bone and have beautiful hand-painted pictures representing the face of each tile.

Traditionally, the Flowers, Seasons and the One of Bamboos come in for particular artistic creativity. The aim is to collect sets of tiles according to the number and type shown on the face of each tile. A player takes and discards a tile each turn and the first player whose hand consists entirely of a legal set orFlowers Seasons sets goes out or goes "Mah Jong".

The game is effectively the same as the card game Rummy, in fact. For what always appears initially to be a very complicated game, Mah Jong is really remarkably simple when reduced to its basics and it is only the accompanying rituals and complex scoring that change this. One of these rituals, the process of shuffling the tiles at the start of the game, is known as "The twittering of the sparrows", presumably because of the accompanying noise.

Since Mah Jong means "the game of the sparrows" or "Sparrow tiles" in Chinese, it seems likely that this is the source of the game's title. Across the top of the box lid can be seen a very dubious assertion. The tiles are wooden but for a low quality set, the Flowers and Seasons are fairly decorate. Tile games of some form have been found from around AD in China and Chinese dominoes has been played for centuries in that region. For more information, see the history of Dominoes.

Mah Jong, however, bears a much greater resemblance in play to certain card games, namely those of the Rummy family. Prior to the appearance of Mah Jong, a variety of card games were played in China with at least four types of cards decks. However, just like Mah Jong the majority were of the set-collecting variety and certain terms from these old card games are also used in Mah Jong.

So, it seems not unreasonable to place Mah Jong as a nephew of those card games. The conception event that mated the card collection methodology with the tile pieces is usually touted as a missing link and it certainly appears possible that Mah Jong may have been the result of such a unique event although it's just as likely that nothing so straightforward ever occurred. Here are four theories for contemplation:. Regardless, the game that sprang from this area of China, almost certainly a descendant of the card game Ma-Tiao, was initially somewhat rough around the edges.

In , Mah Jong was not really known outside its original area but over the next 15 years it spread incredibly quickly across most of China and in doing so supplanted Chess as the most popular Chinese game. The Chinese gradually removed the inelegant elements of game play and incorporated a bevy of rituals surrounding the method of play that have now become enshrined in stone.

Most of these rituals occur at the start of the game and are to do with the shuffling, the building of the four walls in a square, the deal and the splitting of the wall to form the "Kong box". To a beginner, they seem mystifying and unnecessary but the truth is that Mah Jong is, by origin, a gambling game and most of these elements prevent cheating very effectively, a factor that is important when the stakes are high These gradual improvements that nominally were concluded between and , produced a game of mathematical beauty as well as being physically aesthetic.

Certain authors wax lyrical for a great many pages about the mystic and harmonious background to this process and the result. Photo by Immanuel Giel. Positioning Mahjong Tiles before Game Starts. Mahjong is the most played game in China and one of the most famous game in the world, it has heavy relation to Feng Shui and contains many special meanings in the tiles themselves. Mahjong is a tile-based game that requires heavy amount of skill, strategy, decision making skills, and some luck.

Mahjong consists of a pair of dice and tiles labeled in Chinese characters and symbols, and commonly requires four people to participate. Folklore and legend depicts that Mahjong is invented by Confucius , which is due to the three dragon tiles carry the paradigm for Confucius' virtues; Sincerity, filial piety, and benevolence.

Evidence from Chinese researchers claim that contemporary Mahjong originated from Kiangsu, Anhwei near Shanghai around mid- to late 19th century, while others still contest the origin of the game even today.